Help

Discern is a shopping app that keeps track of what you buy and own, saves what you like, and helps you find new brands that suit you. There is no paid placement: nobody pays to be shown to you. Some links may earn Discern a commission, and that never affects what is shown or how results are ranked.

Discern works in the browser on your phone or computer, and can be added to your phone's home screen. The app and the website are the same thing, so everything you see in one is in the other.

Open the You tab and choose Style profile and sizes. You can change who you shop for, your sizes, your budget and the brands you like at any time. Discover uses these to choose what to show you.

Style profile and sizes

You set up auto-forwarding once, from the You tab (Set up auto-forwarding). It copies your order, shipping and return emails to your own private Discern address. After that, your clothing orders show up in the Orders tab on their own. Your original emails stay in your inbox.

Set up auto-forwarding

Discern keeps the details it reads from an order email: the item, store, price, date, size and shipping or return details. It does not keep the email's text in your account. For how emails are handled in full, see the Privacy page or ask a person.

Privacy

Check these in order:

1. Forwarding is set up and confirmed. On the Set up auto-forwarding page, Gmail asks you to confirm the address first. 2. The email is the kind that gets forwarded: its subject includes words like order, receipt, shipped, delivery, rental or arrived, or it comes from a rental service such as BNTO. If your forwarding rule was set up before rentals were added, set it up again from the Set up auto-forwarding page. 3. It was sent in the last few minutes, because reading an email can take a little while. 4. It isn't older than the history length you chose (12 months, 2, 3 or 5 years) on the same page. 5. It is clothing, shoes, bags, jewelry or similar. Orders for other things, like home goods or beauty, are skipped.

If an email can't be read the first time, Discern tries again on its own. If it still doesn't appear, ask a person.

Set up auto-forwarding

Yes. The Set up auto-forwarding page has steps for Gmail, Outlook, iCloud and Yahoo. The Gmail steps are the most tested, so tell us if another provider gives you trouble.

Set up auto-forwarding

Yes. You can paste a product link into Saved (Save a product), and Discern fills in the name and photo. On Android, once Discern is added to your home screen, you can also share a link to Discern from another app.

Saved

Rentals from services like BNTO or Pickle show in Orders with a Rental label, so they don't look like purchases. A rental you have shows when it's due back. Tap I returned it when you send it back, since some services don't send an email for that. A finished rental moves to the end of the list. If you buy a rental you already have, it shows as Bought from rental, with nothing on its way, and you can add it to your wardrobe. A rental you haven't bought isn't offered for the wardrobe.

Styling boxes, like Stitch Fix, show with a Styling box label. Tap Kept it or Sent back on each item. An item you keep becomes an ordinary purchase you can add to your wardrobe.

Orders

Each order with where it is (ordered, shipped, out for delivery, delivered), a tracking link when there is one, the return-by date when the email gave one, and the items. You can search your orders by store, item, order number or month.

Orders

Each order has a "Need help with this order?" link. Pick what happened (a return, wrong item, damaged, late, no refund, cancel), and Discern drafts a message from your order details that you can copy or open in your email app. It also gives one-tap copy buttons for your order number, date, items and tracking number, and links to the store's returns page. Discern does not contact the store or start a return for you: you send the message yourself.

Orders

Every store sets its own policy and changes it over time, so the store's own page is the one to trust. For some stores, Discern shows a short note about what stands out (such as a fee or no exchanges) with the month it was read and a link to the store's returns page. If a store has no note, use its returns page.

The Wardrobe is the pieces you own. Add an item from the Orders tab with Add to wardrobe, and it appears here. You choose what goes in, so a wrong or unwanted order never lands there by itself. You can later mark a piece as returned, exchanged, tailored, donated, recycled or upcycled, and it stays in your history instead of being deleted.

Wardrobe

Saved holds things you like or want. Paste a product link to save it, or tap the thumbs-up on something in Discover. You can group saved items, and Wardrobe pieces too, into collections of your own, such as a trip or a season. You can search what you have saved.

Saved

Add an item with its store, link and current price, and choose when you want an alert: on any price change, or when the price drops to a number you pick. Price history is kept for each item.

Automatic price checking is not switched on yet. For now you record a new price yourself on the item, and Discern compares it with the last one and alerts you.

Price Watch

Home has a Coming up list for the next two weeks: return windows closing, rentals due back, and subscriptions renewing (like BNTO or Rent the Runway when their emails say so). A number on the Home tab shows how many are due within three days. In Alerts you choose what to be reminded about, and you can also get one short reminder email a day, only when something is due. Email reminders are recommended if you use Discern in a browser. Each email has a link to stop them. In the Discern iPhone app you can also turn on phone notifications in Alerts: one on the day each reminder is due, showing the store and the date only, with a test button and an off switch, and a first notification to say it is on. They aren't available in a browser, so use email there. On a return or a rental that is due, Schedule a pickup opens the carrier's own page (UPS, USPS, FedEx or DHL, with the one your order shipped with first) where you enter your address and book it; Discern doesn't book it for you, and carriers may charge.

Alerts and reminders

On Home, Sales from your brands lists this week's sales from the brands you have favorited, saved something from, or ordered from, with why each is there. Discern finds them in the brands' own marketing newsletters that it subscribes to, so nothing is read from your email for this. Below it, New from your brands lists new arrivals, style stories and events from the same brands, each tagged. Tapping one opens that brand's own site; Discern doesn't take payment to show a sale or a story. To also get a notification or email when one starts (at most three a day), turn on Sales from your brands in Alerts. A sale is only as current as the newsletter, so check the brand's site for the exact terms and end date.

Alerts and reminders

Open the item in Saved and tap Tell me when it's back. Discern shows your personal Discern address with a Copy button: open the store from there, choose your size, tap its Notify me button and paste that address as your email. When the store emails that it's back, you'll see it under Back in stock on Home and in Alerts, and get a phone notification or email if those are on (you can switch Back in stock off in Alerts). A store's blast to everyone about restocked favorites does not notify you; if it names something you saved, it shows quietly in the app. This only works for stores that send a notify-me email, and you need email connection turned on.

Alerts

On the Saved tab, tap Remove under the item and confirm; it also leaves any collections. You can do the same at the bottom of the item's own page. For an item you saved from a link, Discern keeps its own small copy of the photo so it doesn't disappear later. If a store wouldn't give a photo, tap Add a photo and choose a picture or screenshot from your phone. Some stores, such as ASOS, don't let Discern read their pages, so those items save with the name from the link and no price.

Saved

Yes. Tap any photo or name in Discover, Saved, or the sales and news on Home to open the product inside Discern: all of its photos, the price, sizes when the brand shares them, the brand's own description, shipping and returns, and more pieces from the same brand or newsletter. Save or hide it from there. Shop at the brand opens the brand's own site over Discern in the iPhone app, with a Done button to come back. Photos belong to the brands and are shown straight from them.

Home

In Alerts, which you can open from the top of any page and from the You tab. Coming up and price changes on items you are watching appear there.

Alerts

Discover is a daily set of pieces on Home, chosen from your profile (who you shop for, your sizes and your budget) and what you have liked or passed on. It leans toward newer and smaller brands. It changes each day, and Show me more gives you another batch. Nobody pays to appear in it.

Home

The thumbs-up saves the item to Saved and tells Discover you want more like it. The thumbs-down hides the item and asks why (the price, the style, the color or fit, or the brand), so Discover learns from it. Tap again to undo either one.

Some pieces come from a store's marketing email, where the price or link isn't always available. Those cards link to a search at that store. Pieces from brands that connected their product list link straight to the product and show their shipping and returns details. Discover's catalog is still small and growing.

Use the search box on Home to look through everything in Discover by item, brand or style. It forgives typos and understands words that mean the same thing, like jeans and denim. Wardrobe, Orders and Saved each have their own search too.

Search

Brands can connect a product list on the brands page. Discern shows your products and sends shoppers to your own site.

For brands

Discern's helper can't pick products. For ideas, use Discover on Home and the search box. Nothing there is paid for.

Home

Open the You tab and choose Sign out.

You

Yes. On the Delete my account page there is a Download my data button that gives you your orders, wardrobe and saved items as a spreadsheet. You don't have to delete anything to use it.

Delete my account and download my data

Open the You tab and choose Delete my account at the bottom. You type DELETE to confirm. Your account is frozen right away and permanently erased after 14 days, and you can cancel any time before then. Your orders, wardrobe, saved items, price watches, profile and forwarding address are erased. Remove the Gmail filter too so nothing more is sent.

Delete my account

At the bottom of every page there are links to Terms and Privacy. For questions about what they mean, ask a person.

TermsPrivacy

Discern does not buy things for you, check out, contact stores for you, or start returns. It does not check prices automatically yet. It cannot see or change your account for you in this chat.

Use Report a problem. Tell us what happened. If you are signed in you can attach up to three screenshots, which only the Discern team can see. We also see which page you were on and what kind of device you're using.

Report a problem

Use Talk to a person under Ask Discern at the top of the Help page, or Report a problem. Discern is a small team, so a person replies by email within 48 hours.

Report a problem